PM by Group

[theclub]

Can we please have the ability to PM whole groups instead of having to enter their names one at a time.

:thumbsup:

[William R]

Oh this would be great!

[Guest]

I like it :)

[Brandon C]

I like this idea!

[StephanieD85]

I like this idea

[shakur1]

not bad idea

[Jenson]

1

[Luke]

Do you have any idea how many PM's would be sent if you were to, lets say, PM the member group and had thousands of members in that group? The number of PM's sent would be huge. You would be much better off with Email's.

[Ziv Grosu]

Can we please have the ability to PM whole groups instead of having to enter their names one at a time.

:thumbsup:

It's a good idea. I tought at this idea. it's very good :)

[Justin]

Do you have any idea how many PM's would be sent if you were to, lets say, PM the member group and had thousands of members in that group? The number of PM's sent would be huge. You would be much better off with Email's.

Not if it were designed with something like that in mind. ;-)

[Michael]

There are mods that do this, they typically send the PMs in batches of 50 users. With thousands of members it can take some time, but won't necessarily kill the server like sending them all at once might.

[Luke]

Well sending them isn't what bothers me, it's just having that many PM's sitting in someone's inbox, in conjunction with how many of them will request notification by email when they receive the PM. At best 10% of a forums registered user's are even active, so if you sent all your members PM's it would just be a waste of space in the database. If you sent your notification by email, it wouldn't have to sit in your database, the same thing, a few thousand times or more.

I can see it useful for minority groups, like Admin or Moderator groups... But when you want to send a PM to those groups you're really better off picking and choosing who you send it to.

[McQ]

Well sending them isn't what bothers me, it's just having that many PM's sitting in someone's inbox, in conjunction with how many of them will request notification by email when they receive the PM. At best 10% of a forums registered user's are even active, so if you sent all your members PM's it would just be a waste of space in the database. If you sent your notification by email, it wouldn't have to sit in your database, the same thing, a few thousand times or more.

All these PM management issues would disappear if IPB would switch to private threads as the basis for their PMs.
One private thread would be ACCESSABLE to a group of 10 (or whatever number) members. But that PM would still only be ONE thread, instead of 10 separate PMs. Having a PM conversation now with multiple participants is like a juggling act, since you don't know who saw what (did EVERYONE get CC'd??). Private threads simplify everything.

[Michael]

You wouldn't know who read the private thread either, unless they responded to it (jmust like PMs). I don't see how that would solve anything.

[McQ]

You wouldn't know who read the private thread either, unless they responded to it (jmust like PMs). I don't see how that would solve anything.

You can rarely know who "reads" anything.

But through the methodology that I already explained in this thread, you'll know who accepted or declined the invitation to a private thread.

The current PM system in IPB is a mess, with space being wasted (for who knows HOW long) by members who might NEVER even return to your forums. The method I described in the above thread is already being used with other forums and it is EASY for admins to manage and MUCH simpler for users to understand. More importantly, little space is EVER allocated for PMs to members who have disappeared. Admins manage/delete private threads based on the lack of new posts. So inactive private threads (no response from the absent member) quickly get deleted.

[bfarber]

It's a neat idea, though I wouldn't say the current system is a mess. The current system functions just how it was designed - to be a private message, sent through the forums, from one member to another. Over time it has gotten more complex (CC users, archiving, folder storage, pm tracking, and so on) but it really does it's job.

However, we will revisit this idea for 3.x

[Michael]

I giess one man's mess is another man's system that works so well and efficiently that he never has to worry about it. :rolleyes:

Sorry, McQ, but it seems to me like you're just trying to hijack someone else's suggestion thread as a way to promote your own separate topic.

[Amy T]

Do you have any idea how many PM's would be sent if you were to, lets say, PM the member group and had thousands of members in that group? The number of PM's sent would be huge. You would be much better off with Email's.

You do have a point how ever it is a good idea.
BUt it needs to have settings such as to only allow groups you wish to use it the ability to use it.

[McQ]

I giess one man's mess is another man's system that works so well and efficiently that he never has to worry about it. :rolleyes:

Sorry, McQ, but it seems to me like you're just trying to hijack someone else's suggestion thread as a way to promote your own separate topic.

I didn't "hijack" anything.

I responded to "Luke's" post (below) about orphaned PMs with a workable solution. If you can explain how IPB's current PM system handles PMs from members who have abandoned their accounts "efficiently" then please enlighten us all here.

What I see currently is a PM system that relies on MEMBERS to manage MY site's disk space. That might be fine if members didn't disappear from forums all the time (as mentioned by Luke in the below post).

The solution I proposed ensures that there is always ONE PERSON (the private thread CREATOR) who is an ACTIVE MEMBER who can control (AND DELETE) THE entire THREAD, not just HIS side of the conversation.

But hey, I know I must sound CRAZY talking about the advantages of THREADED PMs here in a THREADED forum.

After all, why would we want to make the PM function easy and intuitive for our members (they initially joined a FORUM, after all) when we can keep them busy PM-juggling while managing OUR disk space? That's assuming that they haven't disappeared forever with 50 PMs that will NEVER be read or deleted.

Well sending them isn't what bothers me, it's just having that many PM's sitting in someone's inbox, in conjunction with how many of them will request notification by email when they receive the PM. At best 10% of a forums registered user's are even active, so if you sent all your members PM's it would just be a waste of space in the database. If you sent your notification by email, it wouldn't have to sit in your database, the same thing, a few thousand times or more.